Port Angeles

[nibot]

Thor Town Hostel, Port Angeles, WA. March 15, 2006.

I am tired at the end of a long day, mostly a long day of driving. Spectacular driving, though! We grabbed a rental car just a block from squarkz's house, grabbed some piroshky for breakfast, and then hit the ferry out into Puget Sound. My god! The scenery here is incredible. It's like Stockholm or something. We drove and drove up around Olympic National Park and are now perched just to the north of it in a little town called Port Angeles, in an eccentric little hostel called Thor Town.

Thor Town is a little red house that looks like a barn. A couple lives here in one of the rooms with their four year old daughter. The next bedroom is a rented out as a private room and the other one is the bunk room with five bunks. Carl (the dad) and Pluma (the daughter) made a chocolate cake earlier, for her birthday. Stefanos and I cooked ourselves some mushrooms and pasta and broccoli for dinner. We're drinking Washington white wine. Right now Stefanos is explaining wave-particle duality to our enigmatic roommate.

I think it is worth visiting Seattle even only for the Piroshky. Piroshky on Broadway, specifically.

I just got a phone message from four... very garbled, but it seems to say that he's on a freight train somewhere in Virginia!!

I am looking forward to doing some hiking tomorrow in the Olympic National Park. Hot springs! Rainforest! Then I think we may high-tail it to Portland, a drive of at least six hours. Will probably arrive there quite late. I'm looking forward to seeing Jeff B from Wilde who is in law school there and with whom we will be staying.

I spent the drive here fantasizing about doing pretty much the same trip, but hitchhiking. It would be so grand. Being in such amazing territory reminds me how wide and amazing the world is. There are so many places to explore! We could spend weeks backpacking and hitchhiking through Washington state. We could thumb it up to British Columbia, down all the way through California, through Baja again, down through the heart of Mexico, over weeks or a month or a year. Spend time in one place, spend time moving. I wish the girl were here, we didn't have any time constraints, we didn't have a car. Travel is a psychologically strange thing. It's best when you can look inward and go tumbling along.

Comments

[wealhtheow.livejournal.com]

It's under 4 hours from Seattle to Portland, but from the Peninsula it'll take longer. I recommend 101, which takes much longer, but is far, far more scenic. You follow it, cross the Columbia at Longview, and take 30 East into Portland. Then, you call me!

[nibot.livejournal.com]

Riana! We are here in Portland! What should we do?

I think we have a date to go to some Martini bar ("The Vault"?) with Jeff around 6pm. Want to join?

[wealhtheow.livejournal.com]

Yes! I will definitely come!

Things to do:
1. Japanese Garden in the West Hills
2. POWELL'S!!! W Burnside @ W 10th Ave (actually this is the #1 must-do thing while you are here). People-watching out the windows of the always-crowded cafe is fun, as is screwing around with the sculpture across the street. Also, Powell's Technical is down a couple blocks and around the corner, just walk east along Burnside and turn left at the tire place, go past the elephant statue, it's a block north off Burnside there
3. Later tonight, after 10 PM, Voodoo Doughnut, which is half a block south of Burnside on SW 3rd - if you'll be staying that long
4. Maybe we can move along to Rimsky's post-Vault/Doughnut, in a purple house at SE Morrison & 12th next to the Plaid Pantry
5. Gawk at the Alberta Clown House, NE Alberta Street at around 26th - Alberta is good for a wander if want to see gentrification in action. Get food a little further up Alberta at La Sirenita, for great burritos, or at the Vita Cafe for great vegan food and piss-poor service (the latter is a staple of Portland).
6. Visit the St John's Bridge at Cathedral Park - take I-5 N to Lombard Ave going WEST (the 2nd exit, not the Eastbound one a quarter-mile earlier) and drive, drive, drive on Lombard, keeping to the right when it veers around, until you reach the St John's neighborhood, then just after the St John's Pub, make a left on Baltimore and drive all the way down the hill to the park. The bridge is gorgeous, day or night.
7. Maybe the fur protesters are outside Schumacher Furs, SW Morrison & 9th - they have a "Protest Sale" where they take 50% off the price of everything during protests. Sometimes the cops come and bust a few heads.
8. Walk up and down Park Street in the West - if you follow Burnside or any of the east-west streets, you'll run into it, I think Park exists instead of W 7th in the numbered streets order. It's a nice grassy strip that you can walk along, it goes by the Portland Art Museum and arthouse movie theaters and the two churches across the street from each other from which Seth Schoen and I saw two wedding parties emerge post-nuptials at exactly the same time, once when we were visiting Portland together. I forget where that is though.
9. If you ever saw "What the Bleep Do We Know?", that was filmed in Portland, and you can wander around recognizing landmarks from it.
10. Drink Stumptown Coffee! It's made in SE so is most prevalent there, but it's served all over the city.
11. NW 21st/23rd Avenues are the local equivalent of, like, downtown Palo Alto, but with way more coffee shops.
12. If you feel like driving a lot, and want some junk to take back to ROC, go to The Bins (http://www.portlandmercury.com/portland/Content?oid=31773&category=34029) - take SE McLoughlin for a very long time, R on Ochoco, it's on your left. Bring latex gloves. Clothing sold by the pound, paperback books 50 cents, hardbacks a dollar.

OK! Have fun! I'll see you around sixish. (650) 814-3072 if you'd like to call with specifics.